🌱 Seed Stage Split

👋 Hey — Egemen here.

Something unusual is happening at the earliest stages of venture funding, and I think every early-stage founder needs to understand it.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the menu today:

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According to Crunchbase data published last week, over 40% of all seed and Series A capital in 2026 has gone to rounds of $100 million or more.

That number was essentially zero a decade ago, and it stayed modest even during the 2021 peak. This year, it has become a defining pattern.

For most founders, this does not mean the normal seed round is dead. The classic $2 to $5 million raise is very much alive, and dozens of those rounds still close every month. But it does mean that the "seed stage" label now describes two completely different realities.

One is the traditional path of proving product-market fit with modest capital. The other is a pre-built rocketship piloted by famous researchers with billion-dollar backers already on speed dial.

My takeaway for early-stage founders is this: do not let the mega-rounds distort your benchmarks. If you are raising $3 million to build your first product and find your first 50 customers, you are doing exactly what the seed stage was designed for.

The investors writing $2 million checks are not the same investors writing $200 million checks, and the bar for each group is entirely different.

Focus on the metrics that matter at your stage: customer pull, speed of learning, and capital efficiency. Those fundamentals have not changed, even if the headlines have.

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